Specter of a Backbone
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By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Infuriated by Vice President Cheney's stealth campaign to subvert his embryonic attempts at oversight into the administration's domestic spying program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter yesterday did something very rare inside Republican circles: He went public.
In a blistering, three-page letter, Specter shed light on a modus operandi that is normally obscured in secrecy: The way Cheney bends Congress to his will -- and ignores those who dare defy him.
Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee lashed out at Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday, accusing the vice president of secretly lobbying other GOP members of the committee to block hearings on the administration's domestic surveillance program.
"In an unusually sharp attack, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said Cheney had gone behind his back in an effort to persuade other committee members to derail his plans to require telecommunications companies to testify on whether they secretly gave U.S. spy agencies vast quantities of data on customer phone calls. . . .
"His decision to confront Cheney represents an unusually public rupture between a senior GOP lawmaker and the White House. It also provides a rare public glimpse of the tactics employed by a vice president who prefers to operate behind the scenes."
James Kuhnhenn writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "In a delicious bit of detail that underscores the intimacy of this high-powered relationship, Specter complained in his letter that Cheney did not even raise the subject during Tuesday's closed-door Senate Republican policy lunch, which Specter and the vice president both attended.
" 'I walked directly in front of you on at least two occasions en route from the buffet to my table,' Specter wrote."
Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg write in the New York Times: "One Republican with close ties to the administration, who was granted anonymity to discuss the thinking at the White House, said Mr. Specter had been increasingly nettlesome to the administration with his persistent criticism, especially of the surveillance programs.
"Noting that the White House was ultimately pleased with Mr. Specter's help in securing the confirmations of Mr. Bush's Supreme Court nominees, this Republican said, 'All of that good will he's built up has really been dissipated because he keeps smacking them around.'
"A senior White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the president's chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, had reached out to Mr. Specter on Friday to press the administration's case for how to handle the phone companies.
"The official described the conversation as 'cordial but not productive.'
" 'That's when we started reaching out to other members,' the official said. 'It was not out of disrespect.' . . .
"In an interview, Mr. Specter described his relationship with Mr. Cheney as generally friendly and cordial. But he was clearly put out by the vice president's handling of the issue and his failure to pull Mr. Specter aside as he made several trips to the buffet for tuna salad and hard-boiled egg, salad dressing and fruit."
Katherine Shrader writes for the Associated Press: "Cheney's spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the vice president had not yet studied Specter's letter. In an e-mail, she also reiterated the administration's position that no new legislation is needed to carry out the terrorist surveillance program.
" 'We will continue to work with Congress in good faith and listen to ideas of legislators,' including Specter and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, McBride said. 'We will ultimately have to make a decision as an administration on whether any particular legislation would enhance our ability to protect Americans against terrorists.' "
The Letter
CNN Web-published the Specter letter .
"It is neither pleasant nor easy to raise these issues with the administration of my own party, but I do so because of their importance," Specter wrote.
"On March 16, 2006, I introduced legislation to authorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Administration's electronic surveillance program. . . . Notwithstanding my repeated efforts to get the Administration's position on this legislation, I have been unable to get any response, including a 'no.' . . .
"I was advised yesterday that you had called Republican members of the Judiciary Committee lobbying them to oppose any Judiciary Committee hearing, even a closed one, with the telephone companies. I was further advised that you told those Republican members that the telephone companies had been instructed not to provide any information to the Committee as they were prohibited from disclosing classified information.
"I was surprised, to say the least, that you sought to influence, really determine, the action of the Committee without calling me first, or at least calling me at some point. This was especially perplexing since we both attended the Republican Senators caucus lunch yesterday and I walked directly in front of you on at least two occasions enroute from the buffet to my table. . . .
"There is no doubt that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which sets forth the exclusive procedure for domestic wiretaps which requires the approval of the FISA Court. It may be that the President has inherent authority under Article II to trump that statute but the President does not have a blank check and the determination on whether the President has such Article II power calls for a balancing test which requires knowing what the surveillance program constitutes."
And Specter noted that this is not exactly the only example of the Bush administration's expansion of executive power.
"We press this issue in the context of repeated stances by the Administration on expansion of Article II power, frequently at the expense of Congress's Article I authority. There are the Presidential signing statements where the President seeks to cherry-pick which parts of the statute he will follow. There has been the refusal of the Department of Justice to provide the necessary clearances to permit its Office of Professional Responsibility to determine the propriety of the legal advice given by the Department of Justice on the electronic surveillance program. There is the recent Executive Branch search and seizure of Congressman Jefferson's office. There are recent and repeated assertions by the Department of Justice that it has the authority to criminally prosecute newspapers and reporters under highly questionable criminal statutes."
On CNN
Wolf Blitzer interviewed Specter on CNN, and in person, the senator was unemotional.
"I'm not accusing anybody of anything. And I'm not saying the vice president acted in bad faith," he said.
"This is nothing personal between Arlen Specter or Vice President Cheney. This is a matter of civil liberties. It's a matter of separation of power. And it's a matter of important congressional oversight. And, so far, we're not getting there. And that's why I prepared a fairly strong letter. . . .
"I don't think the president has acted in bad faith here. I think he is functioning on something which he thinks needs to be done to protect the country. But he doesn't have a blank check. He's not the final word. We have a Constitution. The Constitution says that the Congress has oversight. And, on a constitutional issue, that's the Judiciary Committee." |
